


Gray and Red, Patience and Cluelessness

by HolidayRose



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:36:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4025359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolidayRose/pseuds/HolidayRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>no one can see color till they find their soulmate. The first color you see is the color of your soulmates eyes.</p><p>Karkat is tired of waiting.</p><p>Dave is clueless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gray and Red, Patience and Cluelessness

**Author's Note:**

> I got lazy towards the end, I'll proofread later XD. Yes I meant to put soul mate as one word<3

At only 13 years old Karkat began to understand what color was. He had always been told stories about the spectrum of colors from his father, but only being able to see black and white, he never was able to truly understand. What didn't make sense though, was the fact that he saw red first. _Red._ Every child knew that you started to see color when you were near your soulmate, and almost like the universe was trying to help narrow down the crowd of people, your first color was the color of their eyes. After meeting them you would start to gain other colors, slowly, very, very slowly.

Karkat never gained any other color then red after that. Not for 2 years at least. His father had taken him to multiple places to get tested for abnormities, but each one said nothing was different about him then any other person. After a while Karkat gave up on trying to figure it out, learning to appreciate that he was able to see a color that was so beautiful. The boy decided red would be his favorite color, no matter if other colors were pretty as well.

In those 2 years Karkat learned that very few people had red eyes, in fact it was a very rare condition called _albinism._ At first he figured that this rare color would make it easy to find his soulmate, but it was really the exact opposite. He looked all over his school for any sign of red eyes but came up short. Even asking if any other students had seen color yet, of course they'd just laugh because seeing color at such a young age was outlandish and unheard of. Eventually the boy gave up, only the red apple he always had for lunch as a reminder.

When he reached 15, a boy named Dave poured chemicals on the ground instead of in a test tube during chemistry. The result was a grade B firecracker that got him sent to the office. Karkat didn't really know Dave to well, only that he was popular around school, on the football team, and always wore obnoxious sunglasses. The boy didn't dislike Dave, He just didn't understand the point of doing retarded and punk things like that.

The next day his chem teacher held him and Dave after class. She told them (mostly Dave) that Karkat would need to tutor him seeing as Dave was failing and Karkat was the best student in chem. After school the boys met up, exchanging number and times for tutoring.

2 days later Karkat saw orange for the first time. He didn't like it very much.

At this he started to get suspicious, realizing that the first time he saw red was midway through seventh grade. Dave had transferred there around then. Now? Now, only a few days after meeting him (officially) he saw orange. All this time he had never seen Dave's eyes either. Should he ask though? Somebody as popular as Dave had to have said something about seeing color by now, showed off about it even. So why? Why did it seem like his soul link was so one-sided?

Tutoring sessions started the following Wednesday. Karkat learned Dave was actually very smart but just refused to show it. Dave was still a douche, just less of a punk. The sessions continued for 3 weeks and by the third he had given up trying to reteach chemistry to the other who already knew it all, it was just them sitting around bantering back and forth. Karkat found himself more and more at ease around the other, no longer limiting their visits to each other to just once a week in the public library. They walked home together or on occasion Dave got his bros car and dropped him off or just simply went to hang out at Dave's house.

They'd known each other for 3 months now, finals were coming. Their visits to each other dwindled as finals neared, until they met once a week in the public library to study just like when they first met. With the exception of playing hide and seek once in a while, The taller of them making spitballs to shoot at the shorter when he's bored, and not to mention getting kicked out then and there for overly loud swearing from guess who.

Finals were over soon after. Dave aced the chem exam. Karkat saw yellow for the first time. His father explained to him that Dave had blonde hair not yellow.

For celebration that finals were over the 2 boys went out to an ice cream shop and bought 2 sundaes each. Dave ended up eating 3 of them. It was then that Dave told the smaller he had seen his first color. Karkat's heart leaped and played as his mind filled with the hope that Dave was finally going to confirm what Karkat had suspected. Instead though, he explained that his first color was one called  _blue._ Vaguely Karkat remembered his father telling him about how the oceans and skies were blue, Karkat had thought (before he had seen red) that blue must be the most beautiful color since God had chosen it to be the Earth's dominant one. His father had shook his head saying that he preferred green since it was his first color and the eye color of the young boys mother. Karkat didn't remember his mother, she died when he was young.

While Karkat reminisced, Dave explained that he thought John is his soulmate. Going on and on about how he could see the color of his eyes, and that they were the color of the sky and ocean. Dave talked with an excitement Karkat rarely got to see. He was giddy with joy, unlike Karkat who was ripe with sorrow.

Desperate for any chance that Dave was his soulmate, Karkat asked how he felt about John. John had moved down to Texas from Washington and would start school as a sophomore with them next year, Dave couldn't be to attached already, right? Wrong. Dave swore up and down he was already head over heels in love. The other tried his best to be happy for Dave, but sorrow etched at him. He left the ice cream shop without eating the cherry on his sundae. The cherry had always been his favorite part.

On the walk back to his home, Karkat realized that he had unknowingly fell in love with someone who could never love him back. He looked to the sky for answers and saw instead that the night was tinted. _Blue_. Karkat couldn't help but think that the sky reflected what he was feeling. He didn't understand the beauty Dave had seen in this color, all Karkat could see in it was sorrow, loss, and regret. The sky mocked him, so he walked the rest of the way home staring at the gray pavement, he wished silently that his world would go back to gray.

Summer was the boys least favorite season. It wore at him with heat and unrealistic dreams of fun in the sun. He fully understood the bright yellow that poured down on him now, along with the bright blue sky that came along with it. Karkat hated summer even more after that one, he wanted the gray of storm clouds back. John and Dave began dating, Dave brushing off the fact that John hadn't seen color yet as late coming, that happened now and then. Karkat knew that this wasn't now nor then though.

For the next 2 years Karkat remained as Dave's best bro and suffered through seeing him love John. Dave had gained sight of brown, green, and orange. He didn't notice that every time he gained a color Karkat had been near. Karkat noticed though.

Orange: Dave had beaten Karkat for the millionth time at Mario Kart, as the loser raged about cheats and rematches, Dave suddenly stopped stock still. He continued to tell Karkat that he got another color and that the other would love having sight of such beauty. Karkat resisted telling him he knew the beauty, he knew it all to well.

Brown: Dave and John had gone on a date. Well, it was a date until an ear breaking fight broke out between the boys. Dave came crying (not literally) to Karkat, the taller of them ranted and raved about his boyfriend. Until finally when Dave stopped pacing about and looked at Karkat and saw the brown in his hair. He immediately called John, they made up. Karkat's heart broke a little more.

Green: Dave took Karkat to the public library to study for their chem final at the end of junior year. They laughed and reminisced until they got kicked out by the angry librarian. She was old but hot damn could she run. They ran across the park away from the library before passing out under the shade of a great oak tree. Dave looked at the ground and ran his hand through the grass blades quietly whispering to himself "green".

Senior year was about to start when Karkat saw Dave's eyes. Karkat had stayed the night, as per usual he was up first. What wasn't usual was the fact that after he had made coffee, the door creaked open revealing a shadeless Dave. Karkat dropped the coffee. The shorter made up a lie, telling the other it was a surprise to see him without his shades for once. Dave brushed it off with a laugh.

Finally, Karkat knew for sure. Dave was his soulmate. Karkat gained every other color he could think of that day. They were incredibly dull though. He couldn't understand why.

A girl named Vriska moved into town a quarter into senior year. She was odd, long hair, one lens glasses, and spiders on everything she owned. John saw the color blue when she came to school. So did she.

Dave was crushed. Really he wasn't though. Karkat believed he had been denying it over time, but Dave had known. He had always known.

John and Vriska came together like puzzle pieces in a jacked up puzzle, Dave started to move on, by mid terms he barely thought of Egbert in that way, instead just enjoying his company as a friend. Dave gained purple and pink when he hit third quarter.

Karkat knew now for sure, he would have to tell Dave he was his soul mate. When he was around Dave he would get nervous and shy. If Dave noticed, he would get flustered and shouty. Dave started to pick up on this. Slowly he started to experiment, what would Karkat do if during a movie they got shoulder to shoulder close? If Dave started spooning him when he spent the night over? If he called him Darlin'? After testing all the sort Dave saw all the colors of the spectrum.

Finally Dave knew, he knew Karkat was his soulmate. Why did he see blue first then though? Karkat's eyes weren't blue they were...

It was spring and it was raining. Karkat simply sat looking out the window as he did most days it seemed. A bang sounded on the door pulling the small boy out of his thoughts. he swung the door open when he got to the front of his home to see a cold, shivering, and soaked Dave. The blonde panted slightly then grinned.

All the sudden Dave's lips crashed onto his, hands locking onto his waist as he ducked lower to be more accessible to the shorter of them. Karkat's lips were chapped but soft, why hadn't he realized this boy was his sooner? Karkat rapped his arms around Dave's neck, hands running through silky strands. A tongue ran across Karkat's lips, he obliged opening his mouth to his soulmate. The kiss was slow and sweet but passionate all at once. The feeling of Dave running his tongue along the roof of the small boys mouth filled his chest in all the right ways, he tasted like nothing Karkat had ever known. It ended to quickly for either of their liking. Karkat's eyes searched Dave's face, the boy suddenly realized the colors he had once labeled "dull" had brightened and become more lively then ever. Karkat could barely utter his words in a whisper. 

"I waited for you."

"Your eyes," Dave panted, "They're gray."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Usually, I have my headcanon for Karkat's eyes as dark brown but gray worked really well for this particular AU. You'll probably notice I ease into a different writing style towards the end, tell me if that worked okay or not for future reference. <3<3<3 For anyone who's reading the current multi-chapter fic im writing im sorry for procrastinating on a grade A+++ level <3<3<3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Gray and Red](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4109158) by [deletable_bird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deletable_bird/pseuds/deletable_bird)




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